


Finally

by GirlWithTheMousyHair



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3871045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWithTheMousyHair/pseuds/GirlWithTheMousyHair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haku had promised they would see each other again. He'd *promised*.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finally

If life was fair, he would have come to her in dreams.

He would have flown in as a dragon, and she would have held her forehead to his and smiled and grinned and cried happy tears and said nothing.

He would have walked in as a boy, a manboy by now, and they would have held hands and run off into the sunset, until they fell into the grass, tired and laughing.

He would have sat with her, and they would have been comfortable in their silence, and silent in their togetherness.

Life wasn't fair, and that is why every time she walked past that archway, it was hollow and empty and full of dead leaves that didn't stir in so much as a whisper of a breeze. Every time. Every time.

 

They had lived in the new house for five years now. Long enough for Chihiro to grow up into what her father had once awkwardly called a 'young woman', before he'd gone back behind his rustling broadsheet newspaper. She had gone to school, and made new friends, and the world hadn't ended - as predicted. She'd got on with things as they'd come along, and been like any other girl of her age, but she'd never forgotten, and never wanted to.

She'd tried that archway so many times. She'd checked the phases of the moon and gone at full, half, quarter, waxing, waning. She'd gone in the morning, in the afternoon, at sunrise, at sunset. On one memorable and exhausting week, she'd gone every night and stayed all night long, standing the whole time to avoid falling asleep, and pinching herself every time she started to nod off. Nothing had worked. The gateway to that other world was closed.

But he'd promised. He'd *promised*.

 

When her first period had started, she had a feeling of revelation, as though this was surely the catalyst she had been waiting for. She tried the archway again, but there was nothing. No deserted marketplace, no mysteriously appearing body of water, no bath house. No Haku.  
No Haku.

He'd promised.

 

On the day that it happened, she wasn't ready for it. In fact, she hadn't been looking for the pathway to that other world for weeks now. Months, really. She had started to write it off as a childhood phase, the way that other people packed away their dolls. But today, she was passing the archway, and there was a car parked there. An empty car, and an unseasonable breeze through the stone arch.

She didn't run through, as she always thought she would have, but walked, slowly, deliberately, classes forgotten. They had never mattered, not compared to this. She felt lightheaded and untethered, unreal yet real.

She walked through the long red tunnel, accompanied by joyful dancing leaves. She walked through the grasslands, clambered over the stones,walked up and past the stone frog.

She walked through the marketplace, past the stalls piled high with dumplings and roasted meat. She knew better than to stop. Even when she heard what sounded suspiciously like the squeal of pigs, she never veered off course, just kept on putting one foot in front of the other, her schoolbag thudding gently against the small of her back with each deliberate step. She came to the stone staircase. As she walked up them, her horizon expanded gradually - so gradually - until she could see the bathhouse. She could really see it! She stopped climbing, and pinched herself to be sure she wasn't dreaming. It hurt.

 

As she climbed higher, she began to make out the wooden bridge. First, the red wooden parapets, seemingly no more worn or weathered than they had been on the day she'd left. Next, in the distance, she saw two figures, small from her perspective, on the bridge. One balanced on the railings, standing on the lowest wooden strut and looking over, down at the train tracks below. The second stood still, several paces back, stiff-backed and dressed in white robes over blue shorts. Even from here, as far away as she was, the scene was familiar. She stopped again, heart hammering from more than just the climb.

It was the middle of the day, not night time as it had been when it was her turn. Even as she watched the two figures in the distance, the smaller of the two climbed down from the railings and bolted back towards her. She felt powerless to do anything but watch as the girl ran away from the bridge, away from the bathhouse, skinny legs pumping like pistons. Chihiro stood, rooted to the spot, as the young girl came closer, and from behind she heard a voice calling. It was the voice of a parent, calling for their missing child, and the running girl answered.

'I'm coming! Wait for me! I'm coming!'

She passed Chihiro with barely a glance. In turn, Chihiro barely looked at her; her focus was on the figure on the bridge, standing so straight, brown hair a little longer than she remembered but arms and legs and waist and feet and everything just as she last saw him. Even down to his clothes - just the same. You'd think he'd have got new clothes, by now. It had been five years, after all.

She looked away, only briefly, to consider her own appearance. She was in school uniform, pleated skirt well below her knee, standard issue white shirt, blazer slung through the strap of her bag, sensible shoes. All shades of grey. Gone the yellow shoes and pink shorts and bold green stripe on her t-shirt. She plucked at the hem of her shirt, uselessly.

When she looks up again, Haku is looking back. It is too far to see his eyes, but all the same she sees them, grey-green and stern. She looks back, not ascending any further, merely standing, with the breeze catching the edges of her skirt.

 

They look at one another, neither moving for what feels like an age. Then, Chihiro begins to climb again.


End file.
